A University of Tokyo research group has demonstrated through computer simulations that the enhancement of fluctuations in a liquid's structure plays an important role as a liquid becomes a solid near the glass-transition ...

From the perspective of complex systems, a range of events – from chemistry and biology to extreme weather and population ecology – can be viewed as large-scale self-emergent phenomena that occur as a consequence of deteriorating ...

(Phys.org)—Stuart Kauffman, from the University of Calgary, and several of his colleagues have recently published a paper on the Arxiv server titled 'Quantum Criticality at the Origins of Life'. The idea of a quantum criticality, ...

Crystalline organic semiconductors have attracted a lot of interest for convenient low-cost fabrication by printed electronics. However progress has been stymied by the low thermal durability and reproducibility of these ...

The construction of model quantum systems or simulators that can reveal hidden insights into other, less accessible quantum states requires paying attention to interactions normally overlooked by most theories, finds a RIKEN-led ...

When water molecules evaporate from a liquid phase into a gaseous phase, they alter their aggregate state. The mathematical description of such a phase transition harbours pitfalls as nucleation is needed for the change to ...

Phase transition

A phase transition is a natural physical process. It has the characteristic of taking a given medium with given properties and transforming some or all of that medium, into a new medium with new properties. Phase transitions occur frequently and are found everywhere in the natural world. Some engineering techniques exploit certain types of phase transition.

In thermodynamics, a phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase to another.

At a phase transition point, physical properties may undergo abrupt change: for instance, the volume of the two phases may be vastly different as is illustrated by the boiling of liquid water to form steam.

The term is most commonly used to describe transitions between solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter, in rare cases including plasma.